I have been reading all the impressions about the HR 1's from those noted above. They sound like what I'm looking for. I have a Taboo MK III and realize that this Amp isn't enough to drive the HR 1's....I have ordered a Torri MK IV so my choice of speakers isn't so restricted. I also have a CSP 3 ordered. My question is this.... I have a 11 by 11 foot listening room.... thick carpeting with an 8 foot popcorn ceiling. Only one wall behind the speakers, could possibly have acoustic treatments added the others are windows with blinds, a closet and floor to ceiling shelving full of CDs and LPs. Would the HR 1's perform well in such a small room with near field listening? Or should I be considering a different speaker choice in this situation? Your help and advice will be much appreciated. Mark.

"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with the concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, deceptions, and spoils;The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Hell. Let no such man be trusted." William Shakespeare

In my opinion, yes. I'm using HR-1s right now in a near-field positioning and though I did have to get used to it and dial it in (I was last listening in a rather large space) the sound is exceptionally good. Now one could argue successfully that the HR-1s are "overkill" for such use, but. . .well you would have a speaker that would be right there doing great work if you ever were to use them in a larger space. That said, one of the other speakers may work really well in the smaller room and with the Taboo.

IMHO - room treatmens are a must in any room, especially smaller rooms. This being a hybrid speaker you have the best of both worlds, so it will sound good, but treatments can help a room sound great! (note, I said the room, not the speakers, the speakers already sound great, it's the room you need to dial in)

I have the HR-1s running in a 11x17 room. I have them on the short wall so my listening is also near field, about 6' away. These things don't care about room size, they just sound good. Holographic and real. Now to let you know I am running them with two SE84CSs in mono mode. So about 6 watts and have no issue with not enought power. I hardly turn the CSP past the 12 o-clock position. If I do it is loud!

My sound is tuned to my system in my room, so you could say my sound is dependent on my room. It is a live room, though controlled. I think it depends what you mean by near field too.

My room is hard to equate to anything having loads of mass and mostly irregular surfaces that really mess with reflections....(adobe with brick floor on sand, with a ceiling of rough wood on round log beams, and lots of insulation and space above the ceiling). Also, I don't really know how to measure as there are a lot of alcoves and segues, but lets say something like 28 x 14-15 with a 9.5 foot ceiling in the main listening area.....well sort of ...... but the ceiling drops to 8.5 a few feet outside the right speaker then the space also opens right up outside these stated dimensions with the entry, dining area, and kitchen! These are good things is general, but man how do you measure this room!@#$%^&

The HR-1s are in the center of the 28' measurement with only 4' 10" inches between the tweeter centers. The radials driver centers are 4 feet from the alcove wall behind them in this part of the room. When I listened to mine with my ears 4' 10" inches from the tweeters (about 9 feet from the alcove wall), forming a triangle tweeter to tweeter, to ears, the sound is strong and focused with good soundstage saturation and depth, but a compressed soundstage width-wise. When I sit in my seat (ears about 9 feet from the tweeters), the spaciousness and ambience opens up a lot. In the general area of my seat, the soundstage widens substantially from the nearer field seat. I would say from perhaps 12 feet wide to 30 or so for actual instruments on some recordings and sort of endless for ambient info.

This was not an exhaustive study by any means, not moving any room "treatments", or moving the general position of the speakers. I did try different toes and found very similar results. Personally, in this system/room, I found the near sound involving, but I much prefer the speakers with more space and distance, which interestingly provides more space and distance in the musical experience. This is however how the system/room developed and the more focused and intense sound could be interesting. Presumably the correct room treatments could make the speakers really good in a small room but I can't personally say this is true.

My listening room is around 12 x 14 and the HR1's integrate seamlessly within that space. You can get a holographic presentation no matter where you are in that room. You don't need room treatments with this speaker.

I don't know RR, I wonder if your room has optimal room dimensions for minimal room modes and you had the flexibility for the absolute best speaker placement????

In my room, the HR-1 with the Torii MkIII definitely needed treatment and EQ to sound reasonably optimal. The biggest issue here, even after making bass traps (theoretically doing work from maybe 25-200Hz) with the Torii there is a bump from 35-55 Hz of roughly +8 dB at its peak.... about 45 Hz. Additionally, this is after tuning down the low bass by closing a bunch of the HR-1 plinth space, putting Deflex panels in the HR-1s to reduce already relatively low resonance, and by tuning out some driver resonance with a few 3mm Marigo resonance absorbing dots (I could hear this very well as a real and useful tuning device).

With the Rachel, this problem area still exists, but is not the problem it is with the Torii. This variable alone is pretty notable. But even with the less pushy/powerful Rachel, it sounds notably better with room treatment and EQ.

I also have a fair bit of absorption that works from about 250 up to the higher frequencies. Even so, I have up to roughly 6 dB peaks and valleys spread around through the spectrum, and there is no doubt, they do effect the sound. Then it just depends how many of these a room/system makes, where they are in the sound spectrum, and finally how much they effect one's impression of the sound.

With all the variables of room dimensions, and depending how this makes all the many individual frequency sound waves overlap, creating multiple cancelations and amplifications depending on the wave length....and with all the variables of room materials, the things that are in the room (and whether they absorb, diffuse or reflect), where the speakers are placed, system parts, and in my case, what amp you drive the speakers with....it appears to me there are nearly endless possibilities as to how well a speaker does in a room without treatment.

For me, even though I have always had a great soundstage even with the bass bloat, as I continue to explore and fix room stuff, my sound gets better and better...notably so. This is not to say the room is totally sorted out by any means... I just don't have the space to get it really right. But with this and that....physical and electronic adjustments, it sounds beautiful...transporting. I would say it sounded great once I got the bass bloat sorted, but now it is notably greater!

Sorry fellas I'm a little late to the party... but anyway.So then I'll work backwards through this thread. That's funny Lon. I remember that pair of speakers when Bob had them at DecFest some years ago. I've stood there in that driveway but never heard speakers there.....hmmmmm

To Will: Yes the big newer TORII's do have a bass capability that can give some serious heft to the sound and I suppose that could work against anyone who may have room boom issues or a pair of speakers that have similar traits in frequencies that get a particular room too "thick" with bass.

Unfortunately for all of us that is just lousy when it happens and IMHO it can and does happen with any kind or quality of gear good or bad. All of my listening spaces acoustically terminate through multiple openings to other spaces in the house so the energy seems to get out of the room and not cause very many bass issues for me.

In my experience with multiple pairs of HR1's the room does play not so delicate and subtle part in the bass response but then so it does with other speakers I have as well so I cant claim that the HR1 is difficult in that regard. What I do know for sure is that the deep bass response is so tight and extended down low with authority and control that I have never been as please with a speakers low bass as the HR1's. Relative amplitude of the bass might be more on some other speakers but it is bloated. I've found that the HR1's will put out accurate but extended deep bass at relatively low volumes. What is amazing is that when you turn it up the bass is explosive at time and I've closely examined driver excursion while this is happening and they are barely moving. However the HR1 is tuned it is stunning how much you can get from them and they are not even breaking a sweat.

Will, if what the TORII is doing at the bass range you mentioned and you have a speaker with such powerful bass in those ranges maybe with your room there is "the perfect storm" for bad bass I obviously can't say for sure.

As for holographic sound stage my experience has been like Riviera Ranch's. 3D all the time anywhere in the room. Better listening spots? Yes. Bad listening spots? Not for me yet anyway. Bob the builders room is totally treated to his liking and when I went to listen to his set-up the imaging was so real it was spooky. The sound was also a bit drier than I'm used to. But that was all room since the general tone of the speaker was intact during those listening sessions. What I will say about Bob's room is that the intimacy is intense with vocals and small instrumental stuff yet the scale of movie soundtracks and stuff like that was BIG!!

So to the original poster Mark58: HR1's have a broad command of different listening spaces and volumes. Bass issues can be major for those in fully enclosed listening room where energy is latent and even resonant and regenerating at certain annoying low frequencies. I still think that goes for all speaker/room combinations. With the ambient and imaging characteristics of the HR1 which present a "sea of sound" with pin point imaging of instruments and voices I think the darn things are addictive.

ChrisK. Nice post, and good points. I am sorry if my post gave any impression that the HR-1 is an excessively bassy speaker. I did not mean for this to be the case thinking my posts were referring more to room treatment necessary in my case. And I have to wonder...if it were a speaker with an inherent bloat bump at 45 Hz peak, would room treatment solve it???

Really to me, this post was to illustrate how different my experience was from Rivieraranch's experience... "You don't need room treatments with this speaker."

Maybe the need for treatment is rarer than not with the HR-1, but with treatment and EQ, my sound is similar to how I understood your description of Bob's...very intimate and convincing with "spooky" imaging... outrageous sound stage saturation combined with amazing ambient/spacial information, setting up an addictive illusion of "players in the room." Mine is more live than dry though...

Reluctantly, I was forced into treatment and EQ, and now feel so good about it that even if there are not serious issues, I think it pays extraordinarily in my pleasure of the music. Lon and I keep an ongoing discussion about "players in the room," which he can't subscribe to, and I feel/hear whenever I sit with the lights off and listen to decent recordings.

There is no doubt that playing around with power, tubes... making amp and speaker adjustments (to my tastes and room) and room treatments and EQ, are all factors here. There is also no doubt to me that the HR-1s are a huge factor in my being fully seduced by the music. Since my room setup is what it is, I guess it is lucky that I like to play around with this stuff to get that totally transporting sound, but it would not have happened without the amazing Torii and HR-1s.

Will your post did not in any way sound critical of the speaker or the amp. Speculating the HR1 with the TORII in your room is causing a swell in the bass frequency response that is just to fat for your room.

Just some other observations about the speaker. I hear the strongest low bass on the HR1 coming in around 32Hz to 40Hz getting strongest at around 36Hz doing sine tone sweeps. That bass response consistent up through 70Hz with a slight drop at 90-100Hz. HR1 does low E on bass every bit as good as I've ever heard it.

Question Will is there any chance you might set up your system in another room temporarily just to play around and see what you might uncover from that exercise ? Have you played them in another space at all? I'm curious.

I have little doubt that it is in part the MkIII's tendency toward heavy bass in combination with the HR-1s, but specifically in this room and this arrangement. I imagine just putting the speakers in the most optimal position for this room would do a lot (pointing length wise rather than width-wise, and way out from walls).

I am curious about the experiment you recommend too, but I am a little weak from surgery just now. Also, the speaker arrangement I have is sort of the only viable choice considering all things, and since I am getting a world class sound as is (managed though it may be) I am content.

Though the measurements I have taken indicate pretty heavy peaks and valleys in places, I think the mic I have is not getting accurate readings, perhaps because of the radial driver being hard to read compared to the front drivers???? Anyway, I use these measurements as pointers and then go by sound...most EQs (other than the very low bass) are less than 3 dB with very narrow Qs. So the Eq I use to balance the sound is not extreme, but it really makes a mark on the presentation, and the bass is amazingly visceral and real.

Thanks Will. This is a good conversation since I have had these speakers I have gone through a really eye opening learning curve about what is going on with this speaker. I do think I've read and understood that an omni-directional driver is hard to measure in terms of in room response and if you use a conventional anechoic chamber that would kill the most of how this speaker functions in my view. I'm interested in what you did with the tuning dots. What/where did you place them?